Zalo white paper

1. Zalo Whitepaper
In-depth whitepaper
covering Zalo history and
development in Vietnam
May . 2019

2. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Table of contents
Study introduction
Conclusion
Executive summary
Zalo users and their behaviors
Zalo introduction
Core Values
Position
Growth and Scale
Zalo Official Account
Overview
Collaboration Platform Model with OA
Business Implementations
Overview
Communication Behavior Snapshots

3. About Adtima
Publisher of the study
About the study
Adtima is the number one premium publisher in Vietnam with over 49,5 million
audience(1)
. It owns Zalo - the number one messaging app in Vietnam with
46,5 million monthly active users (up to March 2019); Bao Moi – top 1 news
aggregator; Zing.vn – top 1 online newspaper; Zing MP3 – No. 1 music streaming
platform and Zing TV- one of the top HD video streaming platform. The superior
advantages of Adtima network are the integration and connection among five
platforms to understand audience’s behavior and ability to launch holistic
communication campaigns.
Launched in 2/2012, Zalo is a free message and call mobile app. By 05/2018,
Zalo has about 46,5 million monthly active users (2)
and become the most popular
communication app in Vietnam. Vietnamese have seen Zalo as a fast, stable,
easy-to-use and convenient platform to connect with friends and family.
The emergence of Zalo has excited Vietnamese marketers when they find more
potential opportunities to approach target audience and implement marketing
strategy on a local platform. However, the progress to explore and deploy Zalo
into marketing is not easy due to lacking of understanding about product and
user behaviors on Zalo.
This paper is conducted to provide basic understanding about Zalo, including its
development journey, values, key functions, user behaviors as well as to suggest
some application models for integrating Zalo into marketing strategy.
Study Introduction
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Source of reference:
(1): Adtima Data Center (2019)
(2): Zalo Introduction (Feb 2019)

4. “Zalo is one of biggest OTT platforms that
shaping mobile landscape in Vietnam. It has
brought unlimited communication
opportunities among internet users, especially
to connected users in rural area where there
are not many players can do. We believe Zalo
will not stop at messaging platform. It will be
not only an e-wallet, but it also will become an
“e-market” being enabled with thousands of
transaction per day for Vietnam users”
"Zalo has become one of the most widely
used communication app in Vietnam across
generations and regions. It is favorably
perceived by Vietnamese audience as a
user-friendly, private and comfortable platform.
The growth of Zalo in Vietnam has established
new exciting channel for marketers to engage
with their target audience. This whitepaper will
give marketers not only essential
understanding about Zalo development
journey in Vietnam but also potential digital
solution via Zalo to effectively approach their
consumers. From Zalo, we can know how to
deliver values to both business and audience"
Zalo Whitepaper 2019

5. Zalo
positioning
in Vietnam
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Emotionally, users identify Zalo
as a friendly and personal place
where they can comfortably
interact with people who is close
to them such as friends, family,
lover. That makes Zalo different
from other social media platforms
that are open environments for
social expression.
To contact with family/relative
or closed friends
79%
To follow/update from
closed ones
73%
To share personal
feelings/thoughts
72%
To contact groups (e.g. hobby
group, club, etc.)
79%
Stable connection for audio/
video call as well as messaging
83%
Image quality is not reduced
86%
Fast file sharing speed
85%
Large file sharing capability
63%
Convenient when transferring
file between PC/Laptop and
mobile device
63%
Functionally, Zalo is
appreciated thanks for its
high-quality transferring features
such as sharing heavy files
with high resolution and fast
sharing speed etc.
Source: Zalo Whitepaper study
in 2018 by Adtima
KEYNOTE FOR MARKETERS
Zalo is potential to be leveraged as a platform for:
- One-to-one conversation channel for consultation and customer care services.
- Encouraging users to become content creator and share those content with their close
network circle.

6. Zalo growth and scale
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
2012
Launched massively. By end of 2013, got
5 million subscriptions
Grew dramatically with over 15 million
subscriptions and 185 million messages.
Expended to Myanmar market with more
than 2 million users. In Vietnam, Zalo kept
on top with 60 million subscriptions.
Grew significantly by 14% audience growth.
Push the growth to 16% and got about
40 million monthly active users.
By 03/2019, reached to 46,5 million monthly
active users and rolled out e-government
model on Zalo in 40 provinces in Vietnam.
Got over 40 million subscriptions.
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019

7. By the end of 2018, Zalo reached the milestone of 100 million users, which shows
Zalo’s capability to dominate Vietnam messaging app across different ages,
gender and region.
The majority of Zalo users are young
people (18 – 34 y.o) who are internet
savvy, open-minded and quickly
adopt new trends adopters.
Furthermore, Zalo has become a life
partner of Generation Z (13 – 17 y.o),
the tomorrow source of growth for
Vietnamese society and economy.
Source of reference:
Adtima Data Center (2019)
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Zalo users and their behaviors
Extend drastically nationwide
Overview
Ages
Zalo attracts both male and female
users. This gender-balanced user
pool serves as potential platform
for promoting both male and
female categories
Gender
18 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 40
13 - 17
Female
Male
45 - 64 55 - 64 65+
44% 56%
23%
7%
5%
1%
30%
25%
10%

8. Source of reference:
Adtima Data Center (2019)
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Zalo has quickly widespread its
coverage across 3 key regions in
Vietnam, starting from South (46%)
to North (35%) and Central (19%)
Vietnam. It is promisingly become
the popular connection ground at
nationwide level.
Region
Zalo user pool are shared not only in
urban (48%) but also in rural (52%).
Urban is defined as top 70 key cities
while rural is the rest. Overall, the
number of Zalo users in rural is slightly
higher than urban 4%.
Rural vs. Urban
Central North
South
46%
19%
35%
48% 52%
Urban - Top 70 Cities
Rural - Exclude Top 70 Cities

9. Zalo in Rural: According to The study about Zalo users behaviors in rural
conducted by Adtima in December 2018, Zalo is considered as an essential part of
rural audience life thanks for its friendly and easy-to-use experience. They tend to
interact with Zalo daily at high frequency. 77% of rural consumers are aware of and
use Zalo and 68% of them use Zalo to chat everyday.
Zalo across Industries: On the other hand, from product point of view, Zalo starts
to establish a digital ecosystem in which we integrate deeply with various key
industries, such as transportation, medical care, education, finance, e-commerce,
retail, and manufacturing etc., to improve business operational efficiency, reduce
operational costs as well as bring more unified utilities to end users.
Source of reference:
Study about Zalo users
behaviors in rural (2018)
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
KEYNOTE FOR MARKETERS
With the huge coverage and
open-integrated ability,
marketers can find more
business growth-hack
opportunities by app-in-app
model on Zalo. Based on
business needs, we can leverage
Zalo as a communication
marketing platform,
CRM communication platform or
O2O (online to offline) strategy
implementation, etc.

10. Top 3 usage features of Zalo are chat, audio call and video call. Those features
have more than 80% conversion rate.
In 2018, Zalo has more than 1 billion messages and 1 million audio call hours per
day(1)
. That is the inevitable result of 4G, 5G infrastructure adoption in Vietnam as
well as the improvement in product development. In 2018, Zalo made a focus on
video call by implementing lifestyle and modern features. It receives highly
positive feedback from users, especially female (85% are happy with the quality of
calls vs. average of 52% on other communication platforms)(2)
.
About conversation interests, we see discussing about work getting tremendous
engagement – over 70% in both personal and group conversation(3)
. That explains
for the high usage conversion of file transfer feature (PDF, PPT, Words, JPEG) on
Zalo – about 83%. Users find file transferring on Zalo convenient, fast and
high-resolution even in low-quality internet status. That statistic also shows the
intrusion of Zalo in white collar segment.
On the other hand, we find users especially love to have group discussion about
entertainment topics (sport, movie) with 30% - 40% engagement rate(4)
.
Zalo features % conversion
(From aware to hose who used Zalo in P1M, Base: 197)
Source:
(1): Zalo Introduction in Feb 2019
(2), (3), (4): Zalo Whitepaper Study 2018
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Communication behavior snapshots
100%
65%
90%
78%
83%
80%
72%
Chat
Group chat
Phone call
Video call
File transfer
Sticker
(Diary)

11. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
KEYNOTE FOR MARKETERS
Core value of Zalo is conversation. That is not only based
on product features but also from users’ perspective. The
better way for marketers to take advantage of Zalo is
building up conversation marketing strategy that
prioritizes native and constructive approach to audience
such as developing chatbot, launching content
marketing or integrating Zalo with Customer Service or
Customer Relationship Management system to bring out
true values to audience.
Referral marketing can be considered as strategic
implementations on Zalo, especially for brands related to
with shopping, music, travel, movie, entertainment
owing to high engagement in group discussion. That can
help brand leverage existing customers to acquire new
ones with efficient cost and time resources.
90%
50%
75%

12. Source: (1), (2):
Zalo Whitepaper Study 2018
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Sticker is one of the features that differentiate Zalo from competitors. 61% of
Zalo users have used stickers in their conversation. Within this group, the sticker
usage frequency is extremely high. On average, users tend to use stickers 4 out
of 5 chatting times. Free and easy to express their emotion are two key factors
making users choose to use stickers(1)
.
74% of sticker users have seen and engaged with branded stickers. 72% of
them claim that “Stickers make me want to stick to the brand” showcases the
positive impact of leveraging stickers into communication strategy, boosting
brand love and reference. Modern users expect more relevant and native
contents rather than pushed-branded information(2)
.
KEYNOTE FOR MARKETERS
Branded Sticker can be leveraged on Zalo to enhance brand interaction
with users. Content for stickers should be native and casual. Imagine that
your audience will use stickers for daily conversation so they need
something simple and playful to express emotions. Too much information or
branding will affect stickers performance.

13. Keynote For Marketers
Zalo Official Account works as an opt-in model that requires
users to follow a specific OA to receive messages. That is to
protect users’ privacy when they have active rights to choose
which stakeholder to connect as well as to bring out positive
impact to business when brands can repeat exposure, advertise
freely, personalize communication and build loyalty.
With that strategic foundation, Zalo is a platform for both push &
pull marketing application. That does not only allow advertisers
to push contents to audiences but also builds up communication
hubs for audience to proactively access such as chat with CS,
update content, query information etc.
Zalo Official Account
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Zalo Official Account (OA) is the two-way and personalized communication hub
of individuals, businesses, communities and government with the aim of
interacting, connecting, transmitting information to audience.
OA is divided into 3 types of accounts:
OA is aimed at becoming the content hub for users where they can passively or
actively update brand information.
SERVICES
an OA to build
brands communica-
tion, announce pro-
motions and do
customer care
MEDIA
a content-oriented
OA to provide
news and valuable
information to
users every day
SHOP
an OA to sell products
and services,
optimized for Zalo
Shop integration and
chat with customers

14. Zalo Official Account
Key Features
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
1. BROADCAST MESSAGE
Send message to target
customers and preset
timing
2. CONTENT CREATION
Create and store
unlimited content in
various formats (e.g.
image, video etc.)
3. CUSTOMER CARE
Automatic and
interactive
communication
platform with
customers
4. MENU
Facilitate browsing
navigation for
customers based on
target service

15. Collaboration Platform Model
with OA
In Zalo, we believe in shared community and evolve towards
mutualistic win-win solutions to create sustainable and replicable
values. We have established Collaborative Platform Model that
allows various economic and social sectors to explore and
integrate rich features to Zalo Official Account.
As a platform owner, Zalo continues to drive collaboration by
opening APIs to more partners. In return, partners intensify Zalo’s
connectivity, contents and contexts. That fraternization will create
surplus value for multiple stakeholders, including end-users and
community.
OA offers users access to information and services. Users can
follow OA across different fields in life according to their
preferences and needs. In that way, users can enjoy various online
convenient services directly on Zalo OA such as e-Gorvernment,
food delivery, finance & banking, transportation, booking
service, entertainment etc.
Zalo Whitepaper 2019

16. Implementations
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
CONTENT
CONSUMPTION
STIMULATION
ONLINE TO
OFFLINE
OPPORTUNITIES
CUSTOMERS
CARE
PROGRAM

17. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
More than just a messaging app, Zalo
starts to establish itself as an essential
partner in users’ daily lives. Users tend
to interact with Zalo for their daily
needs such as reading news, finding
information, etc. 90% users perceive
Zalo as a convenient and quick way to
update news. When coming to Zalo,
users tend to look for value and
relevant information, news (1)
.
Source: (1): Zalo Whitepaper study in 2018 by Adtima
Content
Consumption
Stimulation
Launch in 2006, Baomoi promptly
became the number one news aggre-
gator in Vietnam with more than 110+
publishers integration daily. The key for
their success is focusing on personaliz-
ing users reading experiences. They
built on AI technology and integrated
to Zalo by open APIs.
BAOMOI - Enriches Users Experience
By AI Technology

18. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Customer journey optimization always plays an important role in business to help
brands bring out good experience for users as well as to establish strong founda-
tion for sustainable performance. However, in order to do that we first need to over-
come the challenge of integrating multiple channels and devices into an online to
offline (O2O) customer journey. We see an opportunity for brands in leveraging
Zalo as a bridge between online to offline when 78% Zalo users love to look for sale
and promotion on OA (1)
Source: (1): Zalo Whitepaper study in 2018 by Adtima
Online To Offline Opportunities
New year is the peak time that beverage and alcoholic brands make unique and
interesting advertising campaigns to attract consumers' attention, thereby
increasing sales. Budweiser also did stand out from the exciting playground of the
industry during the 2019 Tet holiday with the campaign "Shake and win" to bring
impressive results and attracted the attention of consumers. By building up
minigame directly on Budweiser OA, they optimized game flow and stayed to
remind audiences, drive them to offline transactions. As a result, the campaign
attracted 112 million impressions; 1,4 million turns of playing game; 258,400 users
engaging with the game. From then, 199,800 QR codes were delivered and 45,000
Bud's Tet aluminium bottles were redeemed
BUDWEISER – OA CAMPAIGN TO
DRIVE ACTIVATION ENGAGEMENTS
Exchange gift at suggested
supermarket
Join game “shaking beer” to
receive QR code for
receiving beer gift
Access to Zalo OA of
Budweiser via mobile phone

19. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Customer care is at the heart of all
successful companies. It can help
develop customer loyalty and improve
relationships with customers. While
58% of Zalo users want to get brand
updates on OA, we see their needs
and engagement intention in customer
care program on Zalo.
Customer
Care
Program
FE Credit is one of the largest financial
service companies in Vietnam counted
for more than 70% market share . With
a large number of customers, FE Credit
needs to find a smart and fast customer
care solution with optimal costs. That
also needs to ensure automation,
personalization and high security. FE
Credit opened OA as an official
customer care channel on Zalo. That
sets two-way conversation to FE
Credit’s customers. Customers can
look up personal information, loans
and choose the services, receive
incentive programs and chat with FE
Credit staff directly on Zalo.
FE CREDIT – Customer Care
Finance Industry

20. The Study Summary
As a part of Adtima ecosystem which owns the most active
mobile platforms across different passion points of Vietnamese
from consuming contents, entertaining to communicating, Zalo
grasps holistic understandings of audiences' behaviors and
interests across those passion points.
Zalo is recognized as a friendly and personal place where they
can comfortably interact with people who is close to them
such as friends, family, lover. That makes Zalo different from
other social media platforms.
By end of 2018, Zalo reached the milestone of 46,5 million
monthly active users that shows Zalo’s ability to dominate Vietnam
messaging app across different ages, genders and regions.
Official account (OA) on Zalo provides an advanced platform for
executing both pull & push marketing strategies.
OA works as Collaboration Platform Model that that allows various
economic, social sectors explore and in-depth integrate rich
features to Zalo Official Account by open APIs.
Zalo Whitepaper 2019

21. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Thank You.
Cảm ơn!
HI :)
Love <3

22. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
APPENDIX

23. Zalo Whitepaper 2019
Adtima owns the most active mobile eco-system including Zalo – Top 1
messaging app; BaoMoi and Zing.vn - the two top news apps; Zing MP3 –
No.1 music streaming app; and Zing TV – the most popular movies app in
Vietnam.
With deep engagement with Vietnamese mobile users, Adtima desires to
cover holistic daily habits of Vietnamese consumers across various
platforms within its ecosystem:
About Adtima
Ecosystem
Any new message
for me?
Any interesting news
today?
Any shocking
news today?
Shopping on Zalo
to relax
Shop
Listen to Zing MP3
music to chill after
work/ school time
Use Zalo Video Call
to communicate with
colleagues and
friends
7AM
8AM
9AM
12PM-
1PM
3PM-
4PM
5PM-
6PM
7PM-
8PM
DINNER TIME
9PM-
11PM
WAKE UP
HAVE BREAKFAST
OFFICE/ SCHOOL TIME
LUNCH
ON THE WAY HOME
AFTERNOON BREAK
Watch Zing TV
to relax
RELAX TIME
NEW DAY
START!